Simple, easy meals are my best friend. Since weeknights are normally pretty busy, I’m always looking for no-fuss meals I can cook quickly. I have a little more flexibility these days since I work from home, but I remember all too well the days when I worked outside the home. Coming home at 6 pm after a day at the office and just having picked up my baby girl from daycare, was not the ideal time for me to start preparing a meal. But, I did so…many times.

During that time, I learned how to make quick meals and use shortcuts, something I still apply in the kitchen today. That’s why I’m happy to share more with you about Simple Meals @ Walmart and a quick dinner recipe for you to try! My family enjoyed this simple Creamy Bruschetta Chicken recipe, pleasing even my daughter who is normally a picky eater. Using Knorr Rice Sides combined with fresh ingredients, this is a super easy one-skillet meal that cooks in under 30 minutes – check it out!

Directions

1. Heat olive oil in skillet and cook chicken thoroughly. Add garlic during the last minute of cooking.

2. Remove chicken and garlic from skillet and set aside.

3. Empty rice package into skillet and prepare according to package directions.

4. Stir in cooked chicken and garlic, along with tomatoes.

5. Sprinkle cheese and basil over final dish before serving.

You can certainly tweak this recipe and use homemade white rice along with your own seasonings and herbs for the same effect. But, using a Knorr Rice Sides package is a simple shortcut to help you get dinner on the table that much quicker. It’s quick, easy, and helps your family eat dinner together on even the busiest of nights. For even more simple meal ideas, check out Simple Meals @ Walmart!

What other quick dinner recipes can you share with us that would make for simple meals to enjoy as a family?

Editor’s Note: You’re going to love this easy roasted chicken recipe by Jeannette Quiñones-Cantore! You can even prepare it ahead of time and use for meals throughout the week. Read on to see how Jeannette makes her Italian-style roasted chicken.

This Italian-style roasted chicken recipe is one of the few recipes that can be prepared with a meal budget of $20 for a family of four. Including all the necessary ingredients you’ll need for this tasty chicken meal, you’ll still be able to meet your budget! I also took advantage of the heated oven and roasted some vegetables: carrots sliced wide (1/2 inch), an onion, fennel (bulb), and two medium potatoes, with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt.

Italian-Style Roasted Chicken {Recipe}

Serves 4 Cooking time: 1 hour & 30 minutes

Ingredients

1 whole chicken (about 3 1/2 lbs)

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

2 Tbsp olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

1 Tbsp oregano, crushed

1 Tbsp basil, crushed

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp thyme, crushed

½ tsp rosemary

½ tsp ground black pepper

2 tsp butter

Note: You can substitute the oregano, basil, thyme, and rosemary with 2 tablespoons of Italian seasoning.

Directions

Rinse the inside of your chicken and pat dry. Slip your fingers between the skin and the breast meat, adding half of the herb mixture with a spoon into the pocket that forms to separate the meat from the skin.

Add butter in between the skin and breast meat as well.

Season remainder of chicken (including over the skin), with the remaining half of the herb mixture.

If you want, you can tie the legs of the chicken with a cord. (optional)

Marinate in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes.

Place chicken, breast side up, on a rack or pan and roast for 1 hour and 30 minutes in your preheated oven.

Jeannette Quiñones-Cantore is the CEO and founder of Sazón Boricua. She started her blog from Puerto Rico in 2008 to share recipes, advice and tips for the home. She collaborates with Qué Rica Vida, has been selected as a Top Bloguera by LATISM 2012, and is also the founder of Red Bloguera de Puerto Rico. You can follow Jeanette on Facebook, Twitter, or via her blog Sazón Boricua.

Cooking dinner sometimes means you have to be a little creative. Though I often cook much of the Puerto Rican food I grew up eating, it’s not all I cook! I love cooking (and eating) pasta, as well – in all forms. One dish my family has come to love is an Asian-inspired noodle recipe, which you can cook with beef (our favorite), chicken, or pork. You could also make this a vegetarian dish and leave out the meat altogether!

This teriyaki beef & vegetable noodle recipe is easy to make, uses little ingredients, and best of all, cooks rather fast. You can easily cook this when you get home from work (or after a long day with the kids), and if you have pre-cut vegetables, it’ll take even less time! I’m sure you’ll be adding teriyaki beef & vegetable noodles to yourdinner menu plan from now on!

Teriyaki Beef & Vegetable Noodles {Recipe}

Ingredients

Salt

Olive oil

Thin-cut steak, cut into strips and seasoned to your liking (you can substitute with chicken, pork, or leave meat out for a vegetarian version)

Linguine noodles, 1 16 oz. package

Teriyaki sauce

Soy sauce

Broccoli, washed and cut into florets

Carrots, washed and cut into strips (I like to buy baby carrots that are already peeled and cut them in quarters length-wise.)

When water in pot comes to a boil, add package of linguine noodles and cook per package directions.

As steak browns and is nearly cooked all the way, lower heat to low-medium.

Add teriyaki sauce and soy sauce to steak. You want to add enough to create a sauce that will blend with the noodles.

When noodles have about 3 minutes of cooking time left, add broccoli and carrots to pot with noodles.

Let broccoli and carrots cook with noodles until noodles are ready to drain.

Drain noodles, broccoli, and carrots and return to pot.

Add steak and sauce mixture to pot with noodles and vegetables.

Mix well and serve.

Enjoy your teriyaki beef & vegetable noodles and have fun with the recipe! You can switch out the meats, as I mentioned, and also trade out the vegetables for your family’s favorites. Let me know what you think if you make it!

I recently hosted a Chef Boyardee house party where we had the chance to test out some new Chef Boyardee recipes with a few friends. We tried out Chef Boyardee’s Ravioli Lasagna, Pepperoni Spaghetti Bake, and Taco-roni recipes. The simplest to make was the Taco-roni; you only have to heat up a few ingredients and stir them together! My personal favorite was the Ravioli Lasagna, which adds cheese and spinach to Chef Boyardee ravioli for a real quick and easy dinner. You can watch the following video of Chef George Duran making the Ravioli Lasagna so you can see for yourself just how simple it is to make.

Party guests enjoyed all three recipes, with varying preferences. All were amazed you could take a Chef Boyardee can and remix it into a full dish with a few added ingredients. The kids enjoyed the Pepperoni Spaghetti Bake the most, probably because of it’s pizza-ish qualities. This was a dish that a friend who helped me out with the party had made previous to the event. She had found that the dough base of the dish needed more seasoning for her taste. When she made it again for the party, she tweaked the recipe a bit by seasoning the dough mix with pepper, garlic, and other spices.

I asked my guests to share with us what they thought of the Chef Boyardee recipes and what they might change, if anything. Though nervous about being on camera at first, they were great sports and played along. Here’s what ModernMami.com Chef Boyardee party guests had to say:

Do you think you will try one of the Chef Boyardee recipes with your family?

Disclosure: As a Be the Chef party host, I was compensated for my time and work. All opinions are, as always, my own.

Growing up, there were many times my brothers and I ate Chef Boyardee. Back then, we mostly ate the spaghetti and ravioli, either as part of our packed school lunch or as a quick dinner solution. To this day, I can remember those nights that mami would serve Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs along with some white rice. (Let’s not get into the reasoning behind doubling up on the carbs, as that’s a conversation for another post.)

Once I was in college and on my own, Chef Boyardee once again became a part of my life. I would often take a can of Chef Boyardee – expanding beyond just spaghetti and ravioli to other varieties – and eat that for lunch at my part-time job between classes.

To this day, I still pull out a can of Chef Boyardee on those days when I don’t have time to prepare a full meal. But, I didn’t know that you can use Chef Boyardee products as part of several recipes, to create entirely new dishes. This Saturday, though, I’ll be trying out a few of the Chef Boyardee recipes along with several of my friends during a Be the Chef House Party I’ve been hired to host!

What are some of those recipes? Chef Boyardee provides the following recipes on their site:

Of those, we’ll be sampling the Ravioli Lasagna, Pepperoni Spaghetti Bake, and Taco-roni. Each of the recipes takes 35 minutes or less to prepare and requires no more than seven ingredients. A friend who is helping me with the party on Saturday already tried out the Pepperoni Spaghetti Bake and said her kids enjoyed the dish! I’m looking forward to tasting them myself and seeing what the party guests think about them.

I’ll be posting after the party to share more about it, the recipes, and feedback from guests. In the meantime, I invite you all to be a part of the conversation and join me on Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter, you can see what many party hosts are up to by following the #ChefBoyardeeParty tag, and on Saturday, especially, see how the parties are progressing. I’ll be posting updates to both from now through Saturday, so be sure to follow along!

Have you ever tried one of the Chef Boyardee recipes or used their products in a dish? Do you have a favorite Chef Boyardee memory from your childhood or with your own kids?

Disclosure: As a Be the Chef party host, I am being compensated for my time and work. All memories and opinions are, as always, my own.